(Andy Synn has a few thoughts about the new Dreamwell, out on Friday, to share today)
Change is one of the few, reliable constants in life.
All of us change – sometimes drastically, sometimes subtly – whether we want to or not, and the same goes for bands… especially when they undergo any sort of line-up shift.
Case in point, after releasing two extremely well-received albums – 2021’s Modern Grotesque and 2023’s In My Saddest Dreams… (which landed on my “Critical Top Ten” for that year) – Providence-based “Post-Screamo-core” crew Dreamwell parted ways with long-time guitarist Aki McCullough (A Constant Knowledge of Death), transforming them from a quintet to a quartet for the first time since their formation.
Understandably then, I was intrigued as to how this might effect the group’s sound… after all, McCullough‘s absence inevitably leaves a gap, and just as nature always seeks to fill a vacuum so too will the rest of the group’s members have instinctively moved to establish a new equilibrium to fill this gap.
And now, with the imminent release of their third album (out this Friday), we finally get to hear just how much has changed for the band.
Having listened to this record multiple times over the last few weeks/months, it’s been interesting to observe, and analyse, both what has changed – what’s been lost, what’s been gained, what has taken on greater prominence and what’s been pushed more into the background – and what hasn’t, as the band settle into their new alignment.
For one thing, Hymns for the Denial of God is unquestionably a bleaker, angrier album than either of its predecessors – as befits its tighter focus on religious hypocrisy and weaponised faith – that presents a more aggressively in-your-face and, arguably (though not entirely), less introverted/introspective version of the band.
That’s not to say that they’ve undergone some sort of drastic metamorphosis – the likes of early highlight “Sissy Hate Machine” and the anxiety-inducing “Plath Vs. Kafka Vs. Romance”, for example, still retain an abrasive edge reminiscent of Vanity-era Eighteen Visions – but the shift in emphasis is still notable/noticeable to anyone already familiar with their previous work(s).
Largely absent, for example, are the shinier and more melodic Post-Rock/Post-Hardcore influenced elements – with the exception, perhaps, of certain From Autumn to Ashes-ish vocal parts (“A Crisis of Realization”) or the occasional brooding musical slow-burn (“I Dreamt I Survived An Extinction Event”) – in favour of something a little harder and more metallic that, at its best (the pummelling “Anti-Christ’s Testimony”, for example, or the caustic catharsis of “Carrion Birds on the Ark”) recalls the electrifying intensity of early-00s Zao.
And if it doesn’t always quite hit the same heights as Mellinger, Weyandt, Cogdell, and co. – “Hypercrucifixation”, despite a killer climax, takes a frustratingly long time to find its feet, and mid-album instrumental “Apostates & Gentiles” starts to lose its lustre after repeated listens – the high points it does hit (and I should at least mention the Awake?-esque bite of “Your Ichthys Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore”, with its climactic snarl of “Why the fuck would Jesus die for you?“) prove that this leaner, meaner version of Dreamwell hasn’t lost a step.